Surf Smart Contracts on the Waves Blockchain

You probably already know that the Waves blockchain is the fastest and arguably the most user-friendly currently in existence, but did you know that the platform’s next wave of technology — powerful, feature-rich smart contracts — is already on the horizon?

What are Smart Contracts?

A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract while allowing for the completion of credible, trackable and irreversible transactions without third-party intervention. They automatically execute exactly as intended, and are secured by the entire network with absolutely no risk of downtime.

Smart contracts are also the mechanisms allowing for the creation of decentralized applications (DApps), which work transparently and securely everyone involved. Transactions are secure because a smart contract won’t complete one unless all of the conditions are fully met. This essentially safeguards against fraud.

Transactions can be conditioned to meet your requirements, as users are able to set a wide range of parameters, including but not limited to two-factor authentication, elapsed time and real-world data.

Smart Contracts + Waves

Smart contracts will bring a slew of new additions and added benefits to the Waves ecosystem.

For starters, smart contracts will allow for multi-signature wallets, which cannot be controlled by simply one person alone. In order to make a transaction, the necessary parties must provide their private keys at the same time. Additionally, two-factor authentication will also be introduced — meaning private keys will also be combined with hardware devices or secondary private keys.

Unlike other similar blockchains, Waves smart contracts do not use gas for non-Turing complete smart-contracts, which means that fixed costs are always known upfront. Compared to Ethereum, which people mainly use for Initial Coin Offerings because of its ability to create tokens, Waves is significantly more simple, efficient and cost-effective — for essentially the same service.

Additionally, with Ethereum, tokens aren’t actually held in users’ Ethereum addresses. Rather, they’re registered to a smart contract and every time you move them, you’re really just updating the information that smart contract records. Waves tokens, however, are like WAVES itself — meaning they are treated exactly the same and are held in your address, while the platform still supports token creation in the core and from the standard Waves wallet. In layman’s terms, Waves makes life lot easier for end users.

Furthermore, the tokens you create can immediately be distributed and traded on Waves decentralized exchange, DEX, with no further work. All-in-all, it’s a far more streamlined and useful approach.

Atomic swaps will also be added, which will allow parties to exchange cryptocurrencies hosted on different blockchains without the need for trust. The Waves team is already prepping for the implementation of currently-in-development atomic swap functionality and is actively recruiting the best researchers for the project. Once complete, integration of atomic swaps will allow ERC-20 tokens to be traded on the Waves decentralized exchange, DEX.

Additionally, smart contracts on Waves will allow for token freezes, meaning users will be able to introduce parameters which prevent buyers from selling or transferring tokens from their address for a specified amount of time — effectively freezing the token. This will be possible for any type of transaction.

Finally, decentralized applications (DApps) which are based on Turing-complete smart contracts will be able to complete complicated processes on the Waves blockchain, meeting a wide range of different criteria.

Two Stage Rollout

Smart contracts will hit the Waves platform in two stages.

First, non-Turing-complete contracts using the RIDE language will allow for the lightweight implementation of smart contracts via smart assets and smart accounts. This is slated to be released on April 19.

The second stage will be the implementation of Turing-complete contracts using the RIDEON language. These smart contracts will be able to undertake complex processes on the blockchain according to a range of different conditions and will arrive after extensive testing of the first non-Turing-complete contracts.

To learn more about Waves smart contracts, check out the whitepaper here.

Are you excited about the addition of smart contracts to the already successful Waves platform? Let us know in the comments below!